Sister: Mom of Captive Kids Had 'Awakening' 9 Years Ago

These undated photos provided by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department show David Allen Turpin, left, and Louise Turpin. (Riverside County Sheriff's Department via AP)

(Newser)
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More disturbing details on the California couple accused of abusing and torturing their 13 children, now from the sister of the children's mother. Teresa Robinette, sister of 49-year-old Louise Turpin, appeared on Megyn Kelly Today on Monday and said she received a few odd phone calls between 2008 and 2010 in which her formerly straight-laced sister revealed she and husband David Turpin had been "experimenting with different religions," getting loaded at bars, and going through what the New York Daily News calls a "spiritual and sexual awakening." Robinette recalls one call in which her sister said her husband dropped her at a hotel so she could have sex with a stranger; a year later, Louise Turpin called her back to say David Turpin had taken her back "to the exact same hotel room, the exact same bed she slept with this man in, so David could sleep with her in the same bed," says Robinette.

Robinette isn't the only relative speaking up. Louise Turpin's brother, Billy Lambert, has also been making the tabloid rounds, revealing his sister was obsessed with the reality-TV show Kate Plus 8, which featured Kate Gosselin and her eight children, and that Turpin aspired to be a reality star herself, per the Desert Sun. In interviews with Inside Edition and the Mirror, Lambert says the Turpins moved from Texas to California to be closer to Hollywood and renewed their vows at the Elvis Chapel in Las Vegas, with the children (faces blurred) by their sides as part of the stunt; the Daily News has video. Per the Desert Sun, court records show all 13 children had names starting with "J," like the Duggars of the former TLC show 19 Kids and Counting. Lambert says the Turpins were even planning for a 14th child. "They didn't care about the kids—it was all about them," he notes. (Read more child abuse stories.)